The Ahom fleet and army broke the invaders; Turbak was killed and his army was chased back to the Karatoya.
01Turbak’s invasion
Suhungmung, remembered as the Dihingia Raja, ruled the Ahom kingdom from 1497 to 1539 and pushed its frontier west along the Brahmaputra. In 1532 an army of the Bengal Sultanate under Turbak came up the river with horse, foot and war-boats. The Ahom Buranjis, the court chronicles, record hard fighting and real losses: at Singiri the Ahoms were beaten and the commander Phrasengmung Borgohain fell. Assamese tradition remembers his wife Mula Gabharu, who took up arms after him and was killed fighting. The Ahoms fell back, rebuilt their fleet and waited for the invader to come further up the river.
02The battle on the river
In 1533 the Ahom boats met the Bengal fleet at Duimunisila and won. The chronicles go on to the last fight of the campaign near the Bharali, where Turbak was killed together with Husain Khan, who had come up with fresh troops. The Ahoms pursued the broken army down the valley as far as the Karatoya, the old western limit of Kamarupa. Captured guns and men were brought back, and the Buranjis note that from this time the Ahoms used firearms. The exact spot of Duimunisila and the order of the last battles differ a little from chronicle to chronicle.
The defeat of Turbak ended the Bengal Sultanate’s attempts on Assam and began the Ahom habit, kept up against the Mughals for a century and a half, of fighting their wars on the Brahmaputra.